During the 86 years of her life, Grace Hopper's
contributions to the field of computer science theory
have secured her a place as the one of the first ladies of the
information age. Born in New York City on 9 December 1906,
Hopper was expressing a talent for math and a
fascination with mechanical gadgets even at a very
early age. Because of the cultural stigma against
women in math, Hopper was forced to hire a private
tutor to sate her appetite for the subject. Her
vigorous study paid off when she graduated from high
school several years early and applied to study at the
Ivy League.
Though being rejected initially by Vassar, she
reapplied and was accepted the following year. In
1928, at the age of 22, Vassar awarded her Bachelor's degrees in both mathematics and physics. The following
year she was accepted to Yale to do her graduate work
in mathematics, earning both a Master's degree and a
PhD from the university in 1930 and 1934,
respectively. Hopper was the first woman to receive a PhD in mathematics from that institution.
Following America's entry into the second World War in 1941, Hopper made a decision that would define her
legacy. Rather than stay at her position as a math
professor at Vassar, she decided to help her country
by enlisting in the Navy. After two years spent
fighting the Navy's enlistment restrictions, Hopper
was finally sworn into the Naval Reserve, graduating
first in her class at the Navy's officer training
school. After graduation, the Navy decided to put her
particular talents to work, assigned Hopper to the
Bureau of Ordnance Computation Project, based at
Harvard University. There, she became one of the first
programmers for the Mark I computer, the world's first
large-scale digital computer, a technological
masterpiece that performed an amazing three operations
per second. The Mark I was eventually replaced by the
Mark II and Mark III machines, both of which saw
service under Hopper. Computer lore has it that Hopper was the first to use the term "bug" after a moth flew into one of the Mark I's relays. This story is a myth, as scientists at Harvard had been calling computing errors "bugs" for several years.
After being honorably discharged from active duty in
1946 because of her age, and turning down her old job
at Vassar, Hopper signed on to remain at Harvard as a
research fellow with the university's Engineering
Sciences and Applied Physics department. In 1949, she
was once again enticed away from the ivory tower, this
time by a position as senior mathematician with the
Eckert-Mauchley Computer Corporation. There she would
help develop the company's BINAC machine, the computer
that would pave the way for the later, more well-known
UNIVAC series.
In the early 1950's, Hopper began the most important
phase of her work, releasing a piece of software
called A-0, the world's first compiler. This allowed
functions to be stored and retrieved later, a tool
that cut programming time drastically. This savings in
time fit with her goal in developing the compiler,
which was to allow the computer programmer to return
to being a mathematician, and also because she was
lazy. Subsequent versions of the compiler developed
and extended the concepts found in the original,
laying the groundwork for what we now know as
programming language theory. Within a short time, the
A series of compilers evolved into FLOW-MATIC, which was
released commercially as the first English-language
data processing language.
In 1959, another one of Hopper's creations was
released upon the world. She has been instrumental in
the development of FLOW-MATIC's successor, the Common
Business-Oriented Language, or COBOL. In 1966, Hopper
retired entirely from the Navy, although the
government changed its mind and immediately recalled
her to duty continuing her work with COBOL. During
this time, she was a key player in pushing the global
standardization of COBOL and other programming
languages, including writing code to translate
programs in non-standard dialects to the published
specification.
Hopper continued to rise through the Navy's ranks,
being promoted to Commodore in 1983 by special
Presidential appointment, and again two years later to the rank of Rear
Admiral. In 1986, she formally and finally retired
from the Navy at age 80, ending her 43-year career
with the service. In addition to her various military
ranks and numerous citations, Hopper was awarded
multiple honorary PhDs from universities across the
nation, as well as the National Medal of Technology in
1991, America's highest honor for contributions to
engineering and technology.
Grace Hopper died on 1 January 1992, and was buried
at Arlington National Cemetery with full military
honors.
Bibliography:
- http://www.agnesscott.edu/lriddle/women/hopper.htm
- http://www.norfolk.navy.mil/chips/grace_hopper/file2.htm
accessed via the Internet Archive at
http://web.archive.org/web/20030414002609/http://www.norfolk.navy.mil/chips/grace_hopper/file2.htm
- http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/Hopper.html